US Justice, State Depts to share info on Visa abuse

The US Justice and State departments have agreed to share information in order to better probe companies that abuse visa programmes used to hire foreign workers, the latest effort by the Donald Trump administration to crack down on immigration abuses.ET Bureau | October 12, 2017, 07:47 IST

The US Justice and State departments have agreed to share information in order to better probe companies that abuse visa programmes used to hire foreign workers, the latest effort by the Donald Trump administration to crack down on immigration abuses.

The information-sharing agreement was announced on Wednesday by the Justice department. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made immigration issues one of his priorities since taking over at the head of the department in February.

Under the memorandum of understanding, the Justice department's Civil Rights Division and State department's Bureau of Consular Affairs will agree to share information about firms that could be discriminating against American workers or lying on employment-based visa applications.

The types of visa under scrutiny include the H-1B, a programme routinely used by technology firms such as Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant and Infosys to bring skilled foreign workers such as engineers to US. Other visa programmes, such as the H-2A and H-2B, are used for hiring temporary or seasonal agricultural workers and temporary non-agricultural workers, respectively.

The Labour department, which plays a crucial role in reviewing visa programme applications by companies, announced earlier this year it planned to step up efforts to root out fraud and make more criminal referrals, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April calling for a review as part of his `America First' pledge. Sessions, meanwhile, has long been concerned about the possible misuse of these visa programmes by companies, and made it a big issue during his time in the US Senate.

By law, companies are not allowed to discriminate against US workers on the basis of citizenship.

Companies that have a workforce of more than 15% of H-1B workers, meanwhile, are also required to try recruiting US workers first and attest they are not displacing Americans.

That visa programme, however, includes a provision that exempts companies from those requirements if they pay H-1B workers more than $60,000 a year or hire those with a graduate degree. Historically, this has complicated Justice department's efforts to police discrimination.

However, recently, the Justice department has had some success in bringing cases against the companies that hire seasonal and non-highly skilled workers.

Most recently, it filed a lawsuit in September against an agricultural company in Colorado for allegedly discriminating against US seasonal technicians, in favour of H-2A foreign workers. ­